Consider Your Call Harvest Right Where You Are 1980

One day, a farmer was working in his field when he heard a voice speaking to him. Now, he couldn't tell whether this voice was being heard by his ears or by his heart, but he knew that it was the voice of God. The voice said, I'm calling you into the harvest.

That night before the farmer went to bed, he shut himself in a room and opened his Bible. And it was as if the very pages of this Bible caught fire. Never had scripture spoken to this man as they now do.

And everywhere he turned, the same message came to him. Behold, the fields are already white for harvest. Go work in my vineyard.

For days, there was a glow within him. His wife never saw him in a better mood. His children never found him more patient.

He kept working his fields, but he knew deep within him that there was to be a change. There was a new life waiting for him, that he had been called into the harvest. But the months went by.

And wherever this door was, which was supposed to open him into a new and fruitful life, he couldn't seem to find it. Then, the pastor of his church was transferred to Alaska. And he was asked to preach every Sunday.

At last, he said to himself, this must be my chance to get into the harvest. He had visions of a spellbound audience, growing crowds of people, healings, spreading revival. But the reality was, the same sleepy congregation came week after week and went on their way, obviously unchanged.

This couldn't be the harvest. So the farmer sold 50 acres of his land, bought a revival tent, sound equipment, semi-truck, and hit the road as an evangelist. This must be what the Lord has in mind.

He went from city to city and occasionally really got some good crowds together. Sometimes people answered his altar call. There were even a few healings.

But after two years of this, he knew that this was not where he belonged. Where is this harvest, Lord? Then he heard of desperate needs and tremendous spiritual opportunities in southern Brazil. So he sold another 50 acres of his land, studied Portuguese, took his family to Brazil.

The reception in Brazil was like everywhere else, lukewarm. After three years of urgent labor among the people of Brazil, in spite of the hopeful things he sent back in his prayer letter, he was driven to the very edge of despair. The farmer came home with his family, holed himself up in a room with a typewriter, and for six months worked on a book which he hoped would stir the Christian world and bring in a harvest.

But the book didn't even sell a thousand copies. I'm going back to farming, he said. And so he set about trying to restore his overgrown fields, what was left of them, and the broken down fences.

One spring morning, as he was plowing with his rusty old tractor, the voice spoke to him again. I'm calling you into my harvest. But this time he was angry.

Oh yeah? I believed you the last time you told me that. And you can't say I didn't try. But everything I put my hand to failed.

So please don't mess up my life anymore. Just then, the engine of his tractor sputtered and died. He was out of gas.

So he picks up the gas can that's hanging behind the seat and heads for an old broken down shack that lies just across the property line that had been there a long time. He says, well, surely they'll have some gas and they'll save you walking all the way back to the barn. Gas? says the old lady at the door.

I don't have any gas. I don't have a car. I don't have a tractor.

I have no truck. Looking through the door, he could see poverty. A bare table with part of a loaf of bread and a teapot.

The woman was shivering. The only thing I can offer you, she said to him, is a cup of tea. And sitting there at the table of this poor, lonely, sickly old soul, this woman who had been his neighbor since childhood, whose husband's death never even left an impression on his mind, the voice came to him for the third and final time.

I'm calling you into the harvest. Now suddenly he understands this is the harvest. And this was the beginning of a new life for him, for the elderly lady, and for a numberless other people.

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

And he called to him his 12 disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal every disease and every infirmity. He called to him the 12. Now there's a call on the life of every single one of us who is at all serious about following Jesus.

When Jesus calls us to follow him, he always calls us to a work. To each of us, he says, I'm calling you into the harvest. We noticed a couple of Wednesday nights ago that when Peter fell to his knees in the boat, when that net came up loaded with fish and said, Depart from me, for I'm a sinful man, O Lord.

Jesus did not say you must be born again. You got to repent and become a Christian, Peter. The only thing Jesus said to him was, Don't be afraid from now on.

You're going to be catching men, which was the same as to say, I'm sending you into the heart, but it's so easy to accept the fact that we've been called into the harvest of God and to rejoice in the knowledge that there is a call on us. And yet to spend really to waste half our lives going all over the place and racking our brains, trying to figure out where the harvest is, the harvest of God is a glorious thing. But when we get up close to it, it looks so ordinary and often so repulsive that we miss it.

We pass it right by. Because all it is is people, people who hurt people who are lost in the shuffle, people who don't even know how to say thank you. People who hide their wounds and their hurt behind anger, boredom, bad habits, cynicism.

And the ones who are sent to do the harvesting are also people, almost exactly the same kind of people, people like you and me. For consider your call, brethren. Not many of you were wise, according to worldly standards.

Not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. So God takes the earthen vessel of our lives, weak and faltering as they are, fills them with a heavenly treasure, the transcendent power of his spirit, and sends us forth. And if we will begin with the people who are right where we are, there will be a harvest.

Specifically, Jesus is calling us to see the people in the place where we now are with the eyes of God. The farmer went over half the world trying to find his calling because he failed to see his nearest neighbor with the eyes of God. And we do the same thing.

We miss the needs that are right under our faces because we don't see these people with the eyes of God. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus saw these people, saw beneath their masks, saw how weak and how troubled and how helpless and needy and wounded they were.

And his heart went out to them with a compassion that bore their iniquities and carried their sorrows. And he commands us to do the same. You say, four months and then comes the harvest.

I tell you, lift up your eyes and see the fields are already white. And as Jesus said that to his disciples in Samaria, Doubtless the woman he had bedded the well was now coming with people from the town. Look at them.

And he says the same to us right now. Look at these people. See how right they are for the kingdom.

Where else can they turn if you will only look at them with my eyes? Jesus says, you'll soon be pouring out your life for them in my name. Jesus calls us to draw near to the people in the place where we are with the heart of God. This man, the farmer, had visions of setting the world on fire for the kingdom.

Yet ignore his his nearest neighbor. Now, how in the world is he going to have any kind of compassion for people in Brazil? If he doesn't even see the work and draw near with mercy to this woman. And as he set a table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples.

And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? But when they heard it, when he heard it, he said, those who are well have no need of a position. But those who are sick, go learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? He eats with them. In other words, he doesn't draw near to them as a professional approaching a client, but he comes to them as a peer. The position comes down and dwells in the world of the sick with mercy.

And if we will draw near the people in the place, wherever we are with the heart of God, we will soon find ourselves surrounded with human anguish and human need. You don't have to do something dramatic to develop a ministry. All you have to do is eat with tax collectors and sinners.

And before you know it, your hands are going to be full, fuller than you can handle. And you'll have to cry out to God for help. Jesus calls us to serve the people in the place where we are with the patience of God.

The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. And that's what Jesus did. He ministered, that is, he served day after day after day when they appreciated it, and when they maligned him and despised him and rejected him.

The nine lepers who never said thank you were still healed. Jerusalem, over which Jesus wept because of its hardness of heart, was still the object of his love. It was his goal.

It was going to be the place where he would lay down his life. Who, having heard the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bring forth fruit with patience. How do we bring forth fruit with patience? But by serving people right where we are, when they like us and when they dislike us and when they malign us and when they misunderstand us, our joy is not that people appreciate us.

If we seek not for our joy, we're going to be upset all our lives. Our joy is that God has given us something to do. That's all.

Finally, Jesus calls us to lift the people in the place where we now are into the kingdom of God. He came to Nazareth, which was his starting point, where he had been brought up and went to the synagogue, as his custom was on the Sabbath day. How institutional.

And he stood up to read. And there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opened the book and found the place where it was written.

The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. The spirit of the Lord is upon me, Jesus said.

Now the spirit of the Lord that was upon him during his days of flesh and blood is upon us. And when we, in him, preach good news to the poor, there will be a response. When we proclaim release to the captives, they receive freedom, eyes open, oppression lifts.

And the scene of the most awesome aspect of this lifting people up into the kingdom of God, from their bondage into God's freedom, is a room where there are no crowds. In fact, where there's nobody but just you. And faithfully, by name, we lift these people up before God's throne.

And we do that every day. You say that's a ritual. Sure, so is eating, so is sleeping.

And this is a more important ritual than eating and sleeping. No ministry will ever get to first base without it. And we will never fulfill any calling God has put on our lives until we start to do this, until we intercede by name for people.

That's not just for St. Francis of Assisi, that's for you and me. Then, when we do that, we then can go out into the world and proclaim the word God gives us to the people in the place where we are, knowing that that word will not come back empty. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal every disease and every infirmity.

He called to him the twelve. Then he called to him countless other people down through these centuries. And now he calls to him us.

Why should he call us? Surely not because we have the greatest potential. On the contrary, he calls us to him to show that the heavenly treasure can do marvelous things, even in such piddly earthen vessels as you and me. For consider your call, brethren.

Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful, not many of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. What awesome things God will do through us if we will but open our eyes to the harvest right where we are.